All Hank, all the time.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky


If the government can check you all they want (including an anal cavity search)

So you like getting the anal cavity search? There's no expectation of privacy because governments do it, and nothing stops them. That doesn't make it right, however. Why else would we have the 4th amendment.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
Slave: I didn't like the NYT in the first place but now I have a strong reason to never read it again: they are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Any newspaper that is aiding and abetting people that are trying to kill me does not deserve my patronage.

This, btw, is about the dumbest controversy I have ever heard. of course the public has a right to know of ways the its government is tracking them.

And all the pollyannas insisting that terrorist will now just never wire money anywhere are as disingenous as they are naive.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Adder
of course the public has a right to know of ways the its government is tracking them.

I think that's precisely the proposition that many are arguing is not an "of course".

The Pentagon Papers case did go to the Supreme Court after all.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Spanky
Both. If you are involved in any sort of international transaction the other country involved will most certainly feel it has a right to check out what you are doing. So there is abolutely no expectation of privacy. I know the Japanese government monitors all incoming and outgoing financial transactions and phone calls. The listen to them and check them out with impunity.

If the government can check you all they want (including an anal cavity search) when you cross the border why shouldn't they be able to check phone calls and banking transactions that cross the border?

But I think that is the way Federal Law views it anyway.

It seems like there are some countries that seem to kind of market themselves as providing banking privacy? Like islands to the south of the US, and a little country that has been a democracy for a long long time. I think, at least as to the long-term democracy place, that they have been convinced to waive some things when there is a showing that the person likely holding the account is Very Very Bad, but it doesn't seem like their government is really into reviewing bank records willy nilly.

On the body cavity search, is the standard at a border crossing (or going through customs or whatever when you get off an international flight) different from the standard at just a regular domestic flight? It seems like if you are a US citizen on US soil (incl. airport) you would have some, like, rights. Or is that a mini-Guantanamo? If so, why can't we relocate the Guantanamo people to airports or something?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Spanky
Slave: I didn't like the NYT in the first place but now I have a strong reason to never read it again: they are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Any newspaper that is aiding and abetting people that are trying to kill me does not deserve my patronage.

I forgot to ask - this was published in the Wall Street Journal too. Will you be boycotting the WSJ too? Why aren't the true patriots who are calling for treason charges against the NYT also calling for them against the WSJ editors and reporters?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
I forgot to ask - this was published in the Wall Street Journal too. Will you be boycotting the WSJ too? Why aren't the true patriots who are calling for treason charges against the NYT also calling for them against the WSJ editors and reporters?

Osama never thinks to read WSJ for terrorist advice. Only the Gray Lady. Plus. watching Hardball.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

The Supreme Court hates America.

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The Supreme Court hates America.

Brilliant. And Alito joins Scalia and Thomas in the Axis Of Ass-Lickers, which is entirely unsurprising.

[SlaveNoMore]

ironweed
Brilliant. And Alito joins Scalia and Thomas in the Axis Of Ass-Lickers, which is entirely unsurprising.

When the NSA intercepts a terrorist plot to blow up - say John Paul Stevens or Anthony Kennedy's house or behead their families - let's just hope they get off the line "for privacy concerns" and forget about the whole thing.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
When the NSA intercepts a terrorist plot to blow up - say John Paul Stevens or Anthony Kennedy's house or behead their families - let's just hope they get off the line "for privacy concerns" and forget about the whole thing.

Why would the terrorists blow them up? They're the terrorists' biggest backers.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The Supreme Court hates America.

The sole redeeming fact of this decision - if there is one - is that the Court affirmed that we can hold these motherfuckers "for the duration of active hostilities" - which, given their intent, may be sometime in the year 4054.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Why would the terrorists blow them up? They're the terrorists' biggest backers.

Terrorists aren't exactly smart. Recall the [paraphrased]sentiments of Michael Moore's column on 9/12:

Why did they attack New York - they didn't vote for him?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The sole redeeming fact of this decision - if there is one - is that the Court affirmed that we can hold these motherfuckers "for the duration of active hostilities" - which, given their intent, may be sometime in the year 4054.

Indeed. We have seen the light of the rest of the uncivilized world. It is far more efficient to lock up people we think are suspicious and detain them until they rot away, rather than try to determine whether they are in fact engaged in illegal conduct. Ask John McCain for a primer on the advantages of this approach.

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
When the NSA intercepts a terrorist plot to blow up - say John Paul Stevens or Anthony Kennedy's house or behead their families - let's just hope they get off the line "for privacy concerns" and forget about the whole thing.

The NSA in all of its incarnations has never been good for anything except smuggling cocaine out of Central America, selling weapons to Iran and shredding its files. If there was a plot involving several years of preparation and 19 or 20 foriegn nationals who intended to fly several commercial airliners into national landmarks after studying at US flight schools, do you think they'd be able to pick that up? It's because they couldn't listen to the calls and check the bank records back then, right? Wait -- don't tell me -- Clinton, right?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Spanky
Slave: I didn't like the NYT in the first place but now I have a strong reason to never read it again: they are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Any newspaper that is aiding and abetting people that are trying to kill me does not deserve my patronage.

Huh. Apparently not a single sentence of the NYT story revealed any new operational information about the program.

• But a search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.
  
  "There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. "The White House is overreaching when they say [The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."
  
  Indeed, a report that [former State Department official Victor] Comras co-authored in 2002 for the UN Security Council specifically mentioned SWIFT as a source of financial information that the United States had tapped into.

Oh, my fucking God. Those goddamned government officials are aidng and abetting the enemy that's trying to kill us. Hopefully the execution of Bill Keller will stop THAT shit.